A YOUNG man woos his higher status bride on an elephant. They marry. Almost immediately he is posted to the front. He disappears. After five years she remarries and becomes pregnant Then, into her village, walks her first husband eagerly seeking a re-union with the bride he hardly knows. This could be the melodramatic scenario of a Bollywood movie - except it actually happened. The soldier is Mohammed Arif and his stunned wife, Guriya Khan. Arif joined the army when he was just 18 against the wishes of his father. But his regular salary lifted the families living standards and an arranged marriage was made between Arif and landlord's daughter Guriya. Matchmaker Afsar Ali recalls: "Arif came to (Guriya's) house sitting on an elephant. It was beyond (his family's) means yet they overspent to match our status." The marriage took place and then Arif, a sapper in the 108 Engineers Regiment of the Indian Army, was sent into Kashmir and the front line at Kargil. On his first night on duty he "disappeared" with another soldier Naik Singh. Days went by and eventually the army declared them deserters. Said Colonel Brigadier Mohan Mehta: "We declare an army person a deserter if they are missing from duty for 28 days without any information." The families did not believe the deserter story but as years past it shamed them and most of all Guriya. Eventually both sides agreed that she should find a new husband and in April 2003 she married Tofik Khan, a cousin. It would have stayed a happy ever after story but for the historic meeting between the then Indian Prime Minister, Atal Vajpayee and President Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan who agreed to exchange prisoners from the Kashmir conflict. This January Arif's family were stunned when they received information at their home in a village 60 miles east of New Delhi that their son was returning. At 12.30am on 9 August, Arif and Mr Singh walked into the Indian army border post of Waga beaming with heads high. They were returning heroes. The first question Arif asked was: "Where's my wife". He was told the sad news. At first Guriya wanted to stick with her cousin. "It's not a children's game called changing husbands," she said. "It is a question of my respect and dignity,." But she changed her mind publicly on television and chose Arif after her village council ruled that she should return to her first husband. At first Arif said he would not accept the child in his wife stomach but he had now relented and says he will bring up the child as his own and that Totik could take over when it is grown. So, as a famous playwright once said: "All's well that ends well."